Cop26: Road closures begin and rail strikes confirmed ahead of Glasgow environmental summit

One of the busiest roads in Scotland closed last night as the country’s biggest city prepared for Cop26.

The Clydeside Expressway, which carries up to 100,000 vehicles a day, shut for more than three weeks before the climate change summit begins on Sunday.

It is only one in a series of closures and detours threatening delays as Glasgow prepares to welcome world leaders, staff, delegates and protesters to the talks intended to agree new limits on greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming.

Drivers were told to avoid the area around the SEC summit venue or face long delays. Problems on the roads will be mirrored on the railways after the RMT union confirmed strike action will go ahead as planned after pay talks broke down on Friday.

Around 25,000 delegates and more than 100 world leaders will converge on Glasgow for the summit which will last until Friday, November 12. The expressway will be closed for three days after that.

The Clyde Arc – nicknamed the Squinty Bridge – and part of the Clydeside Expressway were closed from 9pm while Finnieston Street will only allow local access from today.

Stuart Patrick, chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, said: “There is an undercurrent of concern about what the road closures and any possible industrial action will do to normal business. Equally, there is concern about what it will do for delegates. Public transport strikes are definitely not a good look.

“For the hotel industry there is some real benefit from Cop26 – they will get business that is certainly welcome after 18 months of a pandemic.

“As far as the wider retail and hospitality industry is concerned, some parts will do better than others will. We are bringing in 80 overseas businesses leaders from 10 different countries and we would never have been able to do it at that scale without Cop.”

© Andrew Cawley

Drivers outside Glasgow may also be affected as world leaders are driven to and from Cop26 talks in electric-powered Jaguars provided by the UK Government.

Among the delegates will be US President Joe Biden who is likely to use his armoured limo, nicknamed The Beast, previously brought to the UK for the G7 summit in Cornwall earlier this year.

Motorists have been warned to expect delays on the M8 when Biden travels to and from Edinburgh, where he will be staying. Gleneagles is also expected to be a venue for international delegations meaning users of the A9, M9 and M80 could be hit by delays.

Cop26 organisers said it was up to individual countries to decide how to transport heads of state around. A spokesman said: “Delegates are encouraged to use public transport as much as possible, with those accredited to the Blue Zone being given travel passes which allow access to a range of public transport options.”

The travel passes provide free travel on all local bus, train and subway services but the smart-ticketing system will not be able to continue for travellers after the summit.

The city does have the ZoneCard, which enables unlimited travel on ScotRail, Subway and most bus services but, unlike London’s Oyster card, some public transport services do not accept it.

Labour MSP Paul Sweeney said: “If the government needs to introduce integrated free ticketing for Cop26 delegates because the usual public transport system isn’t good enough, then why is it good enough for Glaswegians the rest of the time?”

© Andrew Cawley

Meanwhile, union leaders confirmed ScotRail workers will strike during the summit from next Monday amid an ongoing dispute over pay and conditions. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said the decision to go ahead with industrial action was made on Friday.

He said: “There was a golden opportunity for ScotRail to make serious progress in talks today but instead they offered nothing of any consequence and as a result our action throughout Cop26 goes ahead as planned.”

Transport Scotland, the Scottish Government’s transport agency, said RMT contacted ScotRail to reject a 2.5% pay increase nearly two weeks after it was made.

ScotRail said it was disappointing that the RMT rejected when others unions, including the TSSA, agreed to it.

The Scottish Government said ScotRail was ready to return to the negotiating table.